Jeff Kent, Man Of The People

Jeff Kent’s decision to retire was like most others — forced upon him by market conditions. Doesn’t make him a bad guy, mind you.

It’s just gravity doing its cruel work.

As for his legacy, he was part of the best teams the Giants have known since the early ’60s, so he’ll be considered well here, despite his fireman-and-arsonist relationship with Barry Bonds. And he will probably be a Hall of Famer at some point, though not right away, and not because of his personality.

The personality argument has always been a stupid one anyway. If personality had that much of an affect, Jim Rice would never have made it to Cooperstown, and neither would Steve Carlton or Mike Schmidt to name but two among scores. There are perhaps a few voters who still like to use their votes that way, but five years is a long time to hold an unjustified grudge, and there are too many voters who don’t play that way. The math doesn’t support the argument.

But we’ll give you math anyway. Since 1990, there have been more than two players inducted only twice — in 1991, when Rod Carew, Gaylord Perry and Ferguson Jenkins made it, and 1999, when the roster was George Brett, Nolan Ryan and Robin Yount.

This means one thing — voters aren’t as generous with their votes as they used to be. And since one place in the 2014 class will be taken by Greg Maddux, Kent goes into a group with anyone who hasn’t made it between now and 2013, including current perennials Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven, Lee Smith, Jack Morris and and any of the following:

2010: Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez.

2011: Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro.

2012: Nobody in particular, unless you have a thing for Terry Mulholland.

2013: Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling and the Other Three Horsemen of the Chemical Apocalypse, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. Plus, we haven’t even factored in any change of heart on Mark McGwire.

In short, Kent may seem like a no-brainer to you, but that’s before full mathematical and contextual vetting over the next five years, the backlog of candidates and the consistently small class sizes. In other words, calm down. This is going to take awhile, and it has nothing to do with whether Kent was a swell guy, let alone a worthy candidate.